Nation & World Briefs

November 18, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY

Judge's exit likely delays Gitmo trials

The chief military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced his immediate retirement Monday, effectively scuttling the slim chance that the trial of conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could get under way before the Bush administration ends.

Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, had been overseeing proceedings against major defendants at the military prison, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the attacks. Kohlmann was scheduled to retire in April.

Karzai offered Sunday to provide security for reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar if he agreed to enter negotiations. But Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said there could be no talks while foreign troops are in the country.

"The Taliban's [leadership] decided they will not take part in any peace talks with Karzai or Karzai's administration until such a day when foreign forces leave Afghanistan," Mujahid said.

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

About 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, the Agriculture Department said Monday. The department's annual report showed that number was the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998. Overall, 36.2 million adults and children struggled with hunger during the year, up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Milt Rosenberg, host of WGN Radio's "Extension 720," was among those honored Monday by President George W. Bush with a 2008 National Humanities Medal. More on the ceremony at chicagotribune.com/honors

NEVADA

Roger Bergendorff, who made enough ricin to kill hundreds of people and kept it with him for a decade as he moved to various Western states, was sentenced Monday to 3 1/2 years in federal prison for possessing the deadly toxin. Bergendorff said at his sentencing in Las Vegas that he never intended to hurt anyone. "I know it sounds crazy. I made it just to have -- and that's why I kept it," he said.

ISRAEL

A bomb exploded in a car carrying one of Israel's top mafia kingpins, killing him. Israeli police officials identified the dead man as Yaakov Alperon -- known informally as "Don Alperon." In recent years mob wars have plagued Israeli towns and cities, with rival underworld gangs waging bloody battles for control of gambling and protection rackets.

RUSSIA

"Our aim is for the investigation to identify the mastermind, the financier and all the other accomplices in the murder."

--Karinna Moskalenko, a lawyer representing the children of slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose human-rights reports had embarrassed the Kremlin. On Monday, a Russian court decided not to ban reporters from the trial of three men accused in the 2006 killing.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

17,438

Number of foreign children adopted in the U.S. in the year ending Sept. 30. The figure, announced Monday by the State Department, is 12 percent less than the previous year and the lowest since 1999.